Another Huck Finn Tale
by vampyrefaerie524
Summary: Okay, I will very quickly admit that this is not mine, a friend sent it to me in hopes of it getting put on here. it's a project for English... His is much better than mine turned out, I think. T for coarse language Short little one-shot, WILL NOT BE CTD


A Continuation of the Never Properly Ended Tale

of _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_

You probably have already have heard much of my story in that book 'bout me by Mr. Mark Twain, _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_,which is I, and if you have not heard my story, I invite you to stop reading this and throw it into the nearest fire. Twain did a good job with my tale and my journeys with the Negro Jim down the countryside along the Mississippi River. But Mr. Twain ended my tale so poorly for there was so much more he could'a told you. He was right that I couldn't stand to be civilised for poor ole Miss Wilson had tried before and I ran from her and also I ran from my mean Pap. Like when I got out then, I was a planning and readying for yet another of my great escapes. I have been making trips in secret in the night to Aunt Sally's cellar where there is bread and butter and wheat and corn; and I have been borrowing little bits each night and taking the bits to my raft which I hid in a small bunch of tall grasses by the edge of the river somewhat near Aunt Sally's house. Aunt Sally did not notice nothing, even though not much time had passed betwixt when Tom and I was playing games with Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas at the same time Tom and I was also working on springing Jim. Jim was now a free Negro now and he was happy and I was too. Jim had plans of his own like me too; Jim wanted to return to his family of which he had wronged long ago and now wanted to beg for their forgiveness. Aunt Polly said she was willing to help Jim get to them and said no longer a time than yesterday that she had hailed a wood horse drawn carriage.

Today was Sunday or so Aunt Sally told me it was today. Today she teached me the days of the week and she told me that this was the first day of the week and the day of the Lord. I found it hard to believe in Aunt Sally's Lord for He seemed not to use His powers to help the world but only to make people gather in churches and bow down to Him like their own Negro slaves. What's so great about a Lord who makes servants out of all His followers? Also because Sunday seemed to not live up to its name as clouds above down poured all over the place wetting everything and striking the ground everywhere with loud strings of light from the sky. I hoped the foodstuffs and things in the raft would make it through the rain. I went back into Aunt Sally's cottage for shelter and went straight for Tom and my room.

I found Tom Sawyer flat on his back on his bed as he had been for the last week, although Tom remained as he always was. Tom covered all but his left leg with a blue blanket, where one of the farmers who was still living in Aunt Sally's cottage in the guest room, waiting for a carriage of his own to take 'em home, as to show off the bullet wound like a war wound. He was always endlessly proud of that wound, feeling that it made him cooler than me and other kids and it did for it made Tom seem like he was a soldier, whose bravery resulted in him getting shot. He told other kids from town who came in from time to time and people he was shot while saving some damsel and her entire farm from a group of bandits on his own. I knowed it was far from the truth, but I never said nothing to anybody about that.

Tom called me to his side and I went to his side and set down on the floor next to him. Tom asked, "Huck where've you been?"

I told him all about how Aunt Sally had taken me up extra early from my bed and tried to teach me all about the Lord's day called Sunday and how I just wouldn't have it.

Tom laughed a little and called me close so that he could whisper in my ear and so the Phelps', who Tom reckoned were putting their ears to the door and listening to us in case we tried anything else that we had done the last week, could not hear us. We sure showed them though, they would not be able to hear us, nothing but me and Tom could hear us. He whispered silently, "You remember when you told me Aunt Polly was hailing a carriage a day ago?"

"Yes Tom, to take Jim where he thinks his family is."

"I've been thinking 'bout it since you told me yesterday Huck. My Aunt Polly hailed a carriage for Jim, so she needs the money to pay for the carriage, don't you think?"

"Yes."

"It's bound to be big bucks, I'm talking upwards of a couple thousand dollars based on how far Jim needs to go. With it we'll be even richer Huck, the most wealthy in the South and with the money we'll be able to bring back the gang and be the baddest band of raiders ever."

I whispered, "Yeah," back to Tom, but I had no desire to be a part of his gang no more. The last gang was hardly even unlawful, its largest heist an attack of children, the greatest booty a toy.

"There'll never be a gang as infamous as ours, there will someday be one of them books about us, the baddest gang ever, Huck. Oh I can see it already! Go Huck and fetch me the money from my Aunt Polly! This is just the beginning." I left Tom to his imaginations and went back to the front door. I looked outside, the carriage for Jim had arrived and the rain had stopped falling and the thunder had stopped cracking. It was very much muddy and damp outside and the boots of Aunt Polly and the two men who headed the carriage and Jim's bare feet and the shoed hooves of the horses and the wheels of the carriage left an imprint in the moist dirt road. Jim was already getting into the back of the carriage and Aunt Polly was coming back to the cottage. I reckoned that I was just a bit too late to make it in time to steal all of the money from Aunt Polly, but I warn't 'bout to go back to Tom empty handed. Aunt Polly tracked in some mud with her boots when she came in through the front door. I says while still peering out the window, "Oh Jim how I'm going to miss you!" and then I started quickly towards Aunt Polly.

"Oh it's okay Huckleberry, he's going back to his family now."

"I know but- but-" I shed a tear and whimpered and she hugged me and brought me close to her center. It was my only chance, I felt around gently as I gave her a hug back and when I found what felt like it could be the money I borrowed it from her and stuffed it in my shirt sleeve.

"There there now Huckleberry, he's going off to someplace where he will be with others of his Negro race." It warn't until then till I realized I was really crying and the tears I wept were real for when I tried to stop myself to make me seem all cheered up as a result of what she said, I couldn't. Aunt Polly patted me twice on the head and walked away and as soon as I could not hear or see her any more I ran the other direction to the other end of the cottage and ducked down behind some furniture and pulled whatever I had ended up borrowing from Aunt Polly out of my shirt sleeve. It ended up being a stack of bills that altogether added up to exactly $800, Tom would not be pleased but that didn't matter, I was gonna leave soon anyways. I also found something else amongst the bills that I had borrowed from Aunt Polly, a small neatly folded white paper. I put the bills back into my sleeve and quickly unfolded the paper.

**Bill of Sale**

Slave Name: Jim

Slave Race: Negro

Seller: Ms. Polly

Amount Paid; $800

I didn't know how to react to the most disgusting piece of paper I have ever read. Jim was on his own and back to the Orleans plantation that he had dreaded so much he ran away from poor Ole Miss Wilson in order to avoid it. I was going to head west, that was the plan at least, to escape another time when the adults are trying to civilise me once again. I stuffed the note into one of the pockets in my trousers and set there, deciding to leave Jim to his fate.

My conscience flooded my mind with a white noise and flashed before me all of my adventures with Jim. It seemed particularly focused on the time where Jim took my shifts at night and let me sleep. Then it brought me back to the first time I referred to Jim and I as companions when I told him, 'They're coming for _us_.' With every memory my conscience brought up, guilt built up in my head, dropping heavy stones one at a time that weighed me down to the ground and began to break my back. My head started to hurt and felt as if something was inside of it rummaging through my memories and using them to stab me one memory at a time. I couldn't take it no more. The pain, the pain was so unbearable but it was only a small bit of the pain Jim would feel if he knowed that I knowed the whole time and did nothing. I pulled Jim's Bill of Sale from my pocket and tore it up into tiny little pieces, so tiny that if one were to come upon the scraps they would never be able to piece them together. My conscience was right in logic and in making me suffer. I had to save Jim at any cost or I would become worser than Aunt Polly and the two slavers and the Duke and the King if I did not.

The question was, what could I do? I was just as helpless as poor Buck was to the wicked Shepherdson's who gunned him down to two slavers roughly twice my size and perhaps twice my age as well. I would not have help at all, 'cause Jim is in the carriage and 'cause Tom still had a lot of time he needed to recover and I warn't sure I could trust Tom either cause Aunt Polly was _his_ Aunt Polly. I was all alone on this one. I thinked about what I could do to tip the balance in my favor and then I knowed it almost in an instant. I picked myself up and went back up the stairs and snook into the guest room. The farmer slept with a strand of hay in his mouth that rose and fell with every breath he let out and his hat was tipped ever so slightly as to shade only his eyes. I looked around the room and spotted the rifle leaned up beside the window with a small box of bullets sitting directly on the window sill. I slowly tip toed on the floor as gently as I could, the floor still let out a long creak with each step so I tip toed a little faster cause every second the floor was creaking was a time and the likelihood of the farmer waking up was greatest.

When the rifle and the bullets were within grasp, I went to grab them while making sure I did not shift my weight too much because the floor seemed so rickety that a single pound of pressure on the old wooden planks that made up the floor and it would creak good enough for any man, animal, or thing to hear loud and clear and instantly know what was the cause of the annoying noise that had filled their ears. I lifted the rifle off of the floor and hung the strap around my shoulder - the nuzzle of the rifle hardly even half a boot from the floor. I went for the box next and upon picking it up the bullets in it rolled all around like little tumble weed and stirred up a racket, so I quickly put them back down and looked back at the farmer. My heart beat so loud it was almost deafening as I looked back at the farmer. He stirred for a moment and my heart skipped a few beats and then he turned onto his side, his hat falling over onto the side of his head. He remained asleep, thankfully and I let out a great sigh of relief that mad his stir again and then come to a halt. I let out the sigh of relief more gently this time.

I turned back from the sleeping farmer and back to the bullets and began to pick them up one at a time from the box counting each one at the same time as I put them in my trouser pocket that did not have the money from Jim's Bill of Sale. In total I found twelve bullets for the rifle, far more than I actually needed but I borrowed them all anyways and left the box. With all of the bullets securely in my trouser pocket I tiptoed back out of the room, keeping my steps as muffled as I could.

When I was out of the guest room, I closed the door in a polite and quiet manner behind me and looked downstairs to see if anyone was about. The coast seemed clear and so I quickly went down the stairs as fast as I could, not wanting to be seen with a rifle on my back and ran straight through the front door out of the house and jumped into a couple of bushes for a moment so that I could take a look to see if it was okay for me to quickly escape the ground of Aunt Sally's property. There warn't a single soul in sight, except for the dog but he would not react in any way like the way one of the people would and so I ran as fast as I could until I was out of breath and out on the road.

I saw the tracks of the wheels of the carriage that had taken Jim and the hooves of the slow going horses imprinted in the dirt road. I could have followed them all the way to Jim and could have stayed on the road, but it would not be long until Aunt Sally and Aunt Polly and Uncle Silas noticed that I was nowhere to be found and they would send someone to search for me or look for me themselves. I walked a little distance from the edge of the road, close enough always be able to see it and hidden enough to not be easily seen from the road and started after Jim at a quick pace 'cause I did not want Jim to reach whatever plantation he was being sent to for there would certainly be more than just two slavers watching the him and the other slaves.

I moved through the unkind murky swampy area off to the side of the edge of the road for some time before I reached Jim. During that time, my feet sunk into the ground with each step, tall grasses sliced tiny cuts into me as I cut through them, and insects flew all around me and bit me over and over again. It all made me miss being on the river, where there was no mud to sink into, no grass to cut you, and no insects brave enough to venture out across the river to bite you too. There was only the serene feeling of drifting with a slow and slight tilt back and forth like a gently rocking baby cradle and that was all. On the river everything just seemed fine, there was never nothing wrong at all with the river.

I found the carriage, which had been proceeding extra slowly cause the dirt road was hardly even solid anymore it was more like a clayish sludge. I moved ahead of the carriage and almost opened fire on them after I had loaded a shot into the rifle and had taken aim to consider what might happen after I did what I was just about to do. The slavers would undoubtedly see my face and remember it well and there would be hundreds drawings of me in every town that involve a bounty for a reward in either finding me or killing me. If that happened, I would not be able to run anywhere without being recognized and detained by someone looking for some easy cash. I thinked hard and long and then looked down at myself and there all over my ruined trousers was the answer. I immediately set out on covering all of my seeable white skin, that warn't covered with clothing, with mud as a disguise.

With every showing surface of my skin smeared with mud I set myself down a little in front of the carriage and took aim once again. I pulled the trigger and the bullet shot out of the rifle in a small billow of smoke and a white flash and the rifle flew out of my hands too and flipped up into the air and then back into my hands again. The slaver driving the carriage whipped the horse and yelled, "Yah yah!" to the horses and they sped up now moving fast and kicking up chunks of the sludgy road all over the place. I did not lose any time- I loaded another bullet into the rifle and gripped the rifle much more tightly as I aimed just a little in front of one of the horses and fired off another shot. The shot hit its mark impossibly perfect as the one of the horses pulling the carriage stepped directly onto the bullet that had struck the road and must have been scared so much by it that it toppled over and the other toppled like a domino in just about the same exact way. The carriage still went quickly over the horses and rolled over onto its side and slid for a while until it came to a complete stop, the slavers were thrown from the front of the carriage and onto the road, each with their crooked faces in the mud.

I moved in as I loaded another bullet and roared wildly at the slavers, deciding to play the role of Jim's son to make myself seem even less a suspect, "Let my father go at once!" I fired a shot that impacted directly in front of them and the two of the slavers sprung up in an instant and ran away from me like cowards fleeing from a seemingly unbeatable force. I fired off a shot after them to help them to pick up their pace and then wildly fired another and another and many more as fast as I could until they were running so fast that they ran flat out of their shoes and they disappeared completely from sight in not even a half minute of time. I watched where they had disappeared for a moment to make sure they warn't coming back but that was foolish for the two slavers would run perhaps for another ten miles before they realized there warn't a reason to run no more.

I checked how many shots I had left as I walked up to the back of the overturned carriage and discovered that it was locked in place by a large padlock and that I had only one shot left. I shot the padlock from the side to avoid shooting Jim, who was still inside of the carriage, and removed the lock and opened the door. "Please doan' shoot me, mista!"

"Jim it's me, Huck."

"Huck! Thanks to goodness it's you. Dey tol' ole Jim they was hon'st men, but dey warn't! Dey lied! Dey was slavers! I was a'mos sure dat was de final piece ef bad luck from dat snake from de islan'."

"I know Jim, Aunt Polly sold you and made certain you would be taken to that Orleans Plantation, for this Jim." I pulled out the eight hundred dollars from my sleeve and handed it to 'em.

"Oh, Mista Tom's own Aunt Polly betrayed me! Tell me ef I can trust you Huck."

"You can."

"Oh, Huck I doan' know what to do. Aunt Polly tol' me dat carriage was to take me to my family."

"You set out for your family Jim, head North."

"Witch way is dat Huck?"

I looked up at the sky and at the sun and knowed which way North was and I pointed it out to him.

"You're not goin with me Huck?"

"No, you set out alone Jim, I'm a'gonna head west away from all of this. The people and their beliefs and practices."

"Okay Huck." Jim put his head down and set out walking along the road straight up North. I looked up at him and realized right then and there that there was too many people to count that was like Aunt Polly and those slavers all willing to take Jim and use him for personal benefit, whether it be some money by selling Jim or working Jim out in the fields. My conscience told me Jim would not make it even a couple of miles before another person took advantage of such an opportunity, without my help that was.

I couldn't stand to let him walk off alone with a goal he would never be able to complete on his own so I set on after him and told him after I caught up to him, "On second thought Jim, I think I'll stick with you. It'll be just like ole times." We'll be there for each other Jim as we were before and we'll get each other through this and to your family, I thinked to myself.

"I doan' know what to say Huck." Jim hugged me and picked me off the ground and swung me around a bit and then put me down.

On the ground again, Jim and I took the first step of one of our many adventures to come.


End file.
